Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated the Forum Summit, attended by South African President Thabo Mbeki among others, with an announcement on providing duty-free tariff preference scheme for imports from 34 Least Developed Countries from the continent. 

The scheme would virtually provide free access to exports into the Indian market by the LDCs from the continent and covers products of immediate interest to Africa such as cotton, cocoa, aluminum ores, copper ores, cashew nuts, cane sugar, ready-made garments, fish fillets and non-industrial diamonds.

Addressing the opening session, the Prime Minister also announced significant increase in the scholarships that India has been offering to students from African countries for study in India. The scholarships would be doubled while the slots that the Government has been offering for training in Indian institutions were increased from the existing 1200 to 1600.

Indian developmental activities in Africa too will be stepped up.
Singh announced that the Indian government would make additional investment of US 500 milliondollars in such areas as sciences, Information Technology and vocational education and investment in research and development in renewable forms of energy, and agricultural development.

Conveying India’s support for peace, stability and socio-economic development in Africa, the Prime Minister also mooted the idea of setting up an India-Africa Volunteer Corps that would be devoted to taking up developmental work.